Milo, Astrosplained: Understanding the House Systems

Ladies and Gentlemen, Reindeer and Roosters:

Today I’m looking at the chart of a young man named Milo. This one is teachable for a few reasons:

1. Milo was born either in a Viking village in the fjords or in Santa’s manger on the North Pole, so his chart looks complicated. This is a chance to dive a little deeper into why the same chart can look very different if you do it at different web sites, which confuses a lot of people. This is a prime opportunity to look at two different house systems.
2. Milo is dealing with some real common life issues.
3. This chart paints a nice, clear picture, very good selfie of the soul.

Here’s a nice graphic from https://astrolibrary.org/birth-chart/ to help you understand what the houses reflect. Because of being born in a reindeer nest, his chart is at an extreme angle and the Placidus chart shows his houses looking all cray. (Speaking of shithole glaciers, where Milo comes from they don’t even rake them up. There’s just gay penguin shit all over the place. That and the windmill cancer kill pretty much everybody there.)

His questions — Milo was dealing with some depression and substance abuse like so many of us. Must be even worse when you can’t even sleep with the reindeer running over your roof all night. Also your ice cream is made of fish.

-How can I create and manage boundaries between myself and people?
-How can I become more disciplined?
-How can I quit taking things so personally?
-How do I express my anger in a healthy way?
-What is missing in my life?
-What areas in life do I need to work/focus on to find balance?
-What should I do with my life? (Jobs/careers/etc.)

In all seriousness, Milo described significant mental health distress, binging on substances and having real difficulty getting through his Saturn return, which is just in the finishing stages for him. So he’s had a rough several years and it may not seem like a terrible storm that has almost passed. I’m assuming Milo is getting therapy. And if not, you really must. This chart is painful to look at. Understand that I’ve been through a lot too, and I wouldn’t be functioning or probably still alive without my therapist.

The theme of this chart is “I hate you, don’t leave me.” There’s an enormous fear of abandonment and at the same time a claustrophobia of feeling smothered. So the escapist mechanism is very strong in someone with such a vivid inner life and so much energy and desire to express it.

So if you’re not working with a therapist now, I strongly encourage you to find someone who can help you create and implement healthy coping strategies. There are highly educated people who do this for a living! You deserve this, just have it because you’re part of the human family. Having a professional, a doctor dedicated to your personal stability and balance is a beautiful thing. All bullshit and levity aside, I’m afraid substance abuse and/or reckless behavior will cut your life short if you don’t make it a top priority to find your balance. ❤

• The Placidus chart shows a direct conflict between the Sun on the Ascendant in Cancer and Neptune on the DC in Capricorn. There’s a strong desire to avoid other people’s bummer versions of reality. Especially with the Ascendant directly on Sirius, there’s a true intensity of passion for self-expression here, an extremely bright person. With this Ascendant and Aquarius on the Midheaven, “I gotta be me.”
• Moon and Pluto both in Scorpio in the 5th. The real problem is the Moon does not do well in Scorpio. There’s a very strong desire to carry out that self-expression suggested with the Sun on the Ascendant and Sirius. Especially since the Sun and Ascendant are both ruled by the Moon in her sign of Cancer, Mars and Pluto become very big players in this chart. Mars and Pluto are ruling the ruler of the Sun and Ascendant, both ruling the Moon from a position of maximum strength their own signs. So the intensity of his feelings, and his tendency to project, are core issues for Milo to work on.
• With Jupiter and Chiron together in the 1st house, plus the heavy 5th house, this is a clear warning about substance abuse. Any kind of really challenged Neptune like this, you really have to be aware of extreme escapism and drug/alcohol abuse. Jupiter and Chiron in the 1st speak to a somewhat relentless desire to club-hop. In Cancer I expect this to be a desire for a little group of buddies that you party with all the time instead of dealing with your responsibilities.
• Pluto is on the Vertex, accenting his influence overall. Milo’s life is about working all the way through his anger and control issues. He needs to find appropriate creative outlets for that T-square Mars energy. He must purge his body of the chemical residue of the anger by working out, training his heart, lungs, and muscles. This will help lessen the desire for spite and revenge, which are so real when you have this much Pluto. Milo’s Pluto kind of has the Moon in a headlock. He must work not to dwell in his darkness but work all the way through it.
• Then we see Mars in his sign of Aries at the head of a T-square. Real anger management, rage caused by the friction seen on the Ascendant-Descendant/Sun-Neptune clash. This is a person with an enormous amount of creative, emotional, and physical energy. Regular daily fitness, and calisthenics to manage anger, both highly recommended. Milo needs to have ways to channel all of that energy to good use.
• Continuing the theme of needing to learn to work with other people, Milo has Juno the Spouse and the Part of Fortune right in the mix with that wounded, raging Moon. So the PoF is where we must take action to ground the life in reality. With all your Mars you really must learn to control yourself. And when you do, you can begin working with a partner. Because you absolutely need to interact with other people, in small ways and in large, with your Ac/Dc/5th/11th situation. Everything about this chart says, “I hate you, don’t leave me.”
• This is a see-saw chart, someone who may waffle and suffer from indecision or lack of focus. Dwelling in anger especially will sap his overall effectiveness and squander his intense energies. With the strong Mars and interpersonal conflicts, reckless or impulsive behavior may be a problem. Then Mars would simply take some impulsive action to alleviate the stress of going back and forth. With so much Pluto it could be explosive. With the AC/DC conflict the see-saw allows the native to bounce back and forth between his version of reality and everybody else’s. I think I can help him work on real boundaries and anger management — been there, done that. I will talk about that more below.
• Lastly Milo has a couple of prominent fixed star placements, namely Ascendant conjunct Sirius. I will say that his Sun and Mercury are tightly conjunct. It’s a matter of debate whether cazimi should be a full degree or only 16 minutes. I like to observe and consider it both ways. Especially in a see-saw chart with a duality theme. Anyway this plus the Aldebaran Venus serve as a reminder that when we have this much energy in our lives, this kind of high-voltage, we have to maintain a very high degree of personal integrity. If you make a small mistake at a high rate of speed it can be a huge problem. To activate your superpowers and keep them working you must never lie. Especially never lie to yourself.

• In the whole signs chart we see that the 8th house holds the Midheaven — the 10th in every Placidus chart. Where the North Node is in the 9th in Milo’s Placidus, it’s in the 8th here with the Midheaven. This answers the very last question about what to do with his life, and in a way all of the other questions. Milo’s life’s work is about using his 8th house to manage all the turmoil inside. In the whole signs chart the Node is also here, making this the answer to the entire chart. This one point alone, in this chart, convinces me to consider switching to whole signs or at least routinely considering both. It probably seems like Milo needs to figure out a career and make it happen. In his case that’s a trick question. It’s really about learning to play nice in the sandbox with others. The more he manages those things the more his life will begin to automatically make sense. The right opportunities will appear and things will fall into place. Above all Milo must learn to control his feelings, not the outside world.
• I get that Milo feels very isolated with Venus in the 12th. It’s at hard angles with Saturn and Uranus both in Capricorn. The very strong Saturn becomes an overall souring and depressing factor, creating pessimism and maybe a sense of dependency with the 12th house. Uranus was castrated. He simply does not relate to mammals in quite the same way as others. With this much Uranus and Aquarius I’m sure Milo feels like the only one who can understand his problems. Especially with the crunchy angles from Venus in Gemini — already not real happy with Saturn — this is especially alienating. Milo probably feels like he lives on a planet of one, and really hates the world other people live in. But in this case he’s almost certainly not allowing others to support him as much as they would like to. Venus is on Aldebaran. Other people can open every door for Milo, the ones he can’t imagine.
• My advice for Milo is to pursue the work of his whole-house 8th house as though his life depended on it. Because in terms of creating a happy, healthy, and sustainable life, it all revolves around the themes of Aquarius in the 8th. In this case the two corulers are there together in the 7th, the natural home of Libra and the place where we seek balance. The problem with those two, Uranus and Saturn, is that they have bad manners. In this chart they’re in Venus’ normal spot, at hard angles to her and in their own signs. Saturn and Uranus both expect everybody else to dance to their weirdo bummer tune. Then they’re sad and lonely when the rest of the world doesn’t want to. This further shows the difficulty in getting along with other people, feeling misunderstood and stifled. When Milo gets a handle on the Sun-Neptune and Ascendant-Descendant issues and learns to work with that, the anger management will be an obvious fulcrum for that resolution. Once he learns proper boundaries and self-care the anger will become well-directed creative energy. Then he will find easier ways to relate to people.

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You might want to take a little detour and check out cafeastrology’s compare astrological house systems report. People often crop up on Reddit thinking one site or another is inaccurate, when actually they are simply doing the calculations differently.

Anyway Milo’s chart is a perfect example of when to switch to whole signs and back. Once Milo gets a good handle on his own chart in whole signs, I’m going to encourage him to dive into the interceptions seen in the Placidus chart.

I think the best advice I can give Milo on this duality theme is that when you’re asking if something is this or that, it’s always both. With the see-saw and the dominating Pluto/Scorpio there is a lack of a medium setting. The either-or mindset is a frustrating trap. Remember that responsibility is literally the ability to respond. You can change anything in your life that you are willing to own. That’s what Pluto does best, completely transforms.

Here it is again with the Placidus houses. Look at how there are three different signs in some houses, making everything dealing with those houses more complicated. Again for example the 5th and 11th, pronounced desire to do some kind of full-throttle partying as a group. Jupiter and Chiron in the 1st, this is the Achilles’ heel, the desire for a good time. I hope Milo isn’t in some kind of a penguin supremacy gang.

Now that I’ve covered the gist of the astrology, here are a couple of central points.

HOW TO MANAGE AND BALANCE OUT THIS CHART

• Get into anger management therapy. This is essential.
• You can learn to understand boundaries. This chart shows not only blurry boundaries with other people, but within yourself. Your life in particular is a bit like a hall of mirrors for a couple reasons. First, the Cancer emphasis in the chart creates an automatic tendency to project. I recommend you look into psychological projection, because it’s probably the biggest issue in this whole chart. Understand that projection is a normal part of the human mind. It’s how humans learn and are socialized, we mirror each other.
• Second issue with projection is the AC/DC. There is no “out there, out there.” Life is really the holodeck. With your human body in the holodeck of life, you can only experience your own energy, nobody else’s. Because in real life the computer is you, your own higher self. What you think of as “life out there” is actually the greater part of your own being, the part you can access through your Moon and Neptune when you remain grounded. Other people and situations are always neutral other than the meanings we give them.
• The Moon and Neptune and in deep doo doo here. Escaping into fantasies and drug use are only the most logical and obvious solution to the problems shown in this chart — and also the absolute worst option. You’re lucky Mars is there and all that Saturn, to give you the strength and backbone to save your own life. A squishier person would probably already be dead. But you do have what it takes to become a stable, grounded, highly accomplished man. You must strive for the best possible reality checking you can get at all times. Don’t buy into childish fantasies that only frustrate you more in the end.
• Integrity is your savior. Think about integrity in terms of structural integrity, like a bridge. Every single thing has to count, always. If it’s in your life it belongs to you. If it’s dirty, clean it up. A therapist can help you learn to know when the other person is projecting or when it’s you. Because I’m quite sure it goes both ways. And with all that Cancer you probably feel the moods of the other people around you quite viscerally, I know I do. Because of your mirroring tendencies, and Cancer’s easily wounded tendency to take everything personally at Level 100, and then Pluto to freak out and want to kill somebody over it, you can go in bad circles. So ask yourself this: If your life was perfect in every way, whose fault would that be?
• Trust your life. I know that sounds crazy at the stage you’re in. But understanding that “your life” is actually “the whole of you,” that will transform your entire life in a magical way once you get it in your bones. Other people are in your life to be road maps to the parts of yourself you can’t see. Especially with Venus in the 12th, you can’t imagine how much you need other people.

Learn to control your breathing. Getting control of your life begins with getting control of your emotions. Once you do that, your thoughts will be much clearer, your self-image can improve, and you will naturally emerge into a world that feels much more comfortable to you.

It’s like demanding the mirror smile at you first. The DC is the mirror.